Ask the Author: Sally Crosiar
Answered Questions (9)
Sally Crosiar
Avonlea on Prince Edward's Island! L.M. Montgomery paints an idyllic setting that I'm aching to see. I once stood near Toney River on the northern shore of Nova Scotia gazing across the Gulf of St. Lawrence toward PEI. I wished to be beamed up to that enchanted isle, but time and commitments thwarted my longing.
But. I. Will. Get. There. Soon!
But. I. Will. Get. There. Soon!
Sally Crosiar
Sorry. Horror scares me!
Sally Crosiar
West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge
American Dirt by Janine Cummings
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann
Sycamore by Bryn Chancelor
Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson
Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner
And many more...
American Dirt by Janine Cummings
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Olympus, Texas by Stacey Swann
Sycamore by Bryn Chancelor
Mother May I by Joshilyn Jackson
Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner
And many more...
Sally Crosiar
A scene plays out in my head for days - sometimes weeks - before I get the time and will to sit down and pound it out on the keyboard. And then it changes and morphs into something else - usually more believable and true to what the characters might actually say and do.
I once despaired I'd never find ideas enough to create characters and stories, but now they pop up every few days. Oh for the luxury to develop each of those ideas...
But a wise author once advised that 'we're always writing even when we aren't actually writing.' What a relief! The more time a story lives in my head, the more clearly it will flow from my fingers...eventually.
I once despaired I'd never find ideas enough to create characters and stories, but now they pop up every few days. Oh for the luxury to develop each of those ideas...
But a wise author once advised that 'we're always writing even when we aren't actually writing.' What a relief! The more time a story lives in my head, the more clearly it will flow from my fingers...eventually.
Sally Crosiar
Make-believe is the game a fiction writer plays. Can you imagine a life that's more fun?
Writing a novel is a little like building a fort out of blocks and Lincoln Logs. Or designing some piece of wearable art - another way I exercise my creativity ADD. I might have an image of an end result in my mind, but the fort or the felt scarf or the beaded bracelet decides it would like to look like something other than what I first imagined. Sometimes it looks better; sometimes not so much. But it's the process of building it that taps into some core need I have to make something out of nothing.
My stories always start with at least one character I'd like as a friend. And then I get to add up the pieces of how that person got to be who s/he is. Each one of those pieces may or may not resemble me or someone I know, but when I put them all together, I've made a whole person - on paper - that never existed before. Without the pain of childbirth.
And that, the process of making something out of nothing, is pure play - which is not to say it's easy. Dr. Spock said, 'A child does not love play because it's easy. S/he loves it because it is hard.'
So the best thing about writing fiction? It's playing dress-up in someone else's clothes, it's building a fort, playing with shapes and colors, quirks and foibles. It's playing make-believe!
Writing a novel is a little like building a fort out of blocks and Lincoln Logs. Or designing some piece of wearable art - another way I exercise my creativity ADD. I might have an image of an end result in my mind, but the fort or the felt scarf or the beaded bracelet decides it would like to look like something other than what I first imagined. Sometimes it looks better; sometimes not so much. But it's the process of building it that taps into some core need I have to make something out of nothing.
My stories always start with at least one character I'd like as a friend. And then I get to add up the pieces of how that person got to be who s/he is. Each one of those pieces may or may not resemble me or someone I know, but when I put them all together, I've made a whole person - on paper - that never existed before. Without the pain of childbirth.
And that, the process of making something out of nothing, is pure play - which is not to say it's easy. Dr. Spock said, 'A child does not love play because it's easy. S/he loves it because it is hard.'
So the best thing about writing fiction? It's playing dress-up in someone else's clothes, it's building a fort, playing with shapes and colors, quirks and foibles. It's playing make-believe!
Sally Crosiar
1. Don't wait till you know how to write - a poem, a novel, a story, non-fiction, whatever. If I waited till I knew how, I'd never have finished Come Back. Probably this is a life lesson that applies to other goals and aspirations.
2. Give up the idea that what you write has to be 'good' - especially in your first draft. I have a sign in my office that says, 'Write one bad page every day.' (I wish I met the every day goal!) When I don't focus on quality and just get started, I often find that some of what I wrote isn't all that bad. Sometimes I like it and think it's pretty good.
3. Write.
2. Give up the idea that what you write has to be 'good' - especially in your first draft. I have a sign in my office that says, 'Write one bad page every day.' (I wish I met the every day goal!) When I don't focus on quality and just get started, I often find that some of what I wrote isn't all that bad. Sometimes I like it and think it's pretty good.
3. Write.
Sally Crosiar
Trick question! My harsh reality is that I like and am fully committed to eating. I mean every single day. Hence, I do many things to feed (pun intended) my body, and the soul-wrenching work of writing contributes little to my table. Alas.
Writing for me is what Stephen Covey would call important but not urgent work. The stuff that pays me - often reading the so-so and sometimes awful writing of college students - is urgent and important - due to aforementioned commitment. Ergo, to say I'm 'working' on my next novel is a gross over-statement of fact.
However, I take heart from what fellow writer (though way beyond my league) Rene Denfeld said in a workshop I attended last year. 'We're writing all the time, not just when we sit at the computer.' We observe, we eavesdrop on strangers (maybe that's just me) and make up stories about them. We think.
And there is a story - perhaps halfway written - ratcheting about my brain. When my head hits the pillow every night, characters from Home Place dance about. They don't often stay the whole night, but there they are again in the morning, sometimes whispering their next moves, sometimes gustily clamoring to be set down on the page already!
Do characters from Come Back reappear? No. Is it autobiographical? No. But it is based on a real place - the house, farm, and timberland my family still calls the Home Place even though not one of us has lived there since 1967. The protagonist is not me, not remotely, except for the deep-rooted feeling in her gut for the place and the ancestors that built it.
Kat Patterson is my chance to re-write history as she struggles to keep the Home Place in her family - something I had no opportunity to do at age 14. Will she do it? Ah there's the rub.
It's not a practical goal to rehab a house that's 150 plus years old. Or to want to live in that sprawling barn of a place with two kitchens, two living rooms, two dining rooms, seven or eight bedrooms, two closets, and just two bathrooms. But Kat's a determined dreamer who's just now learning to stand up to her greedy brother (also not based on any real person) and who has the dubious help of a site engineer the brother has hired to attract a big-time developer. Will high-priced McMansions replace the timber Kat loves?
I don't yet know because I've so little time to make my keyboard figure it all out. But I'm listening. To the whispers and the clamors.
Writing for me is what Stephen Covey would call important but not urgent work. The stuff that pays me - often reading the so-so and sometimes awful writing of college students - is urgent and important - due to aforementioned commitment. Ergo, to say I'm 'working' on my next novel is a gross over-statement of fact.
However, I take heart from what fellow writer (though way beyond my league) Rene Denfeld said in a workshop I attended last year. 'We're writing all the time, not just when we sit at the computer.' We observe, we eavesdrop on strangers (maybe that's just me) and make up stories about them. We think.
And there is a story - perhaps halfway written - ratcheting about my brain. When my head hits the pillow every night, characters from Home Place dance about. They don't often stay the whole night, but there they are again in the morning, sometimes whispering their next moves, sometimes gustily clamoring to be set down on the page already!
Do characters from Come Back reappear? No. Is it autobiographical? No. But it is based on a real place - the house, farm, and timberland my family still calls the Home Place even though not one of us has lived there since 1967. The protagonist is not me, not remotely, except for the deep-rooted feeling in her gut for the place and the ancestors that built it.
Kat Patterson is my chance to re-write history as she struggles to keep the Home Place in her family - something I had no opportunity to do at age 14. Will she do it? Ah there's the rub.
It's not a practical goal to rehab a house that's 150 plus years old. Or to want to live in that sprawling barn of a place with two kitchens, two living rooms, two dining rooms, seven or eight bedrooms, two closets, and just two bathrooms. But Kat's a determined dreamer who's just now learning to stand up to her greedy brother (also not based on any real person) and who has the dubious help of a site engineer the brother has hired to attract a big-time developer. Will high-priced McMansions replace the timber Kat loves?
I don't yet know because I've so little time to make my keyboard figure it all out. But I'm listening. To the whispers and the clamors.
Sally Crosiar
Since I write only after all other work that puts food on my table is done, I don't generally have a problem with writers' block. While I grade student papers, do laundry or errands, or wake up in the middle of the night, the next story is incubating inside my head. So when I do get a focused hour to write - and I do need at least an hour of cleared space and time - I hatch the next phase without much hitch.
What I do struggle with? Editor's block! Honing, crisping - and heaven forfend deleting? These are the tasks that make even dusting or vacuuming look marginally attractive!
What I do struggle with? Editor's block! Honing, crisping - and heaven forfend deleting? These are the tasks that make even dusting or vacuuming look marginally attractive!
Sally Crosiar
Come Back was born from a prompt in my writer's group. One of our members wrote a backstory for a character she was about to portray in community theater, and the rest of us got intrigued. Our challenge was to write a story about her character's profession.
And the profession? Can't tell you. That would be a spoiler!
I will say that the project was difficult and started me thinking hard about how one got started in that work and also what happens after one moved on to another career. Much of Come Back is about both the before and after!
And the profession? Can't tell you. That would be a spoiler!
I will say that the project was difficult and started me thinking hard about how one got started in that work and also what happens after one moved on to another career. Much of Come Back is about both the before and after!
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